I sound hopeless at relaxing. Au contraire, I relish my alone time. I’m great at chilling. I merely enjoy chilling in the allotted window. That includes going to sleep at a decent hour. Ten hours in bed is, to me, the holy grail, because life is exhausting and holidays are even more exhausting.
I remind my husband of this every time he suggests a third nightcap or a starlit walk on the beach to discuss the repercussions of Franco’s dictatorship on the Basque economy. Most times he’ll skulk off disappointed. At home, I can take myself off to bed without controversy.
However unpopular my stance may be, I am no endangered breed. The Hilton hotel group knows it. A study it conducted last year with OnePoll revealed that nearly half of Britons need two or more days to unwind on holiday, owing to work stresses and pet separation anxiety. Possibly for these reasons, 50 per cent of working adults routinely neglect to take their full annual leave, according to a recent survey commissioned by British Airways and YouGov. The Dutch psychologist Ad Vingerhoets even observed “leisure sickness” among adults who struggled to transition from work to relaxation.
True, it’s written in the stars that I will receive at least one ominous work email during holidays, as a reminder that someone, somewhere is unhappy with me. However, I enjoy my job. I thrive on normality. I don’t hate Mondays. On a Monday, I can take care of that ominous email. And then, later, I can relax – in bed watching Netflix, or putting the world to rights over a third nightcap, if I so wish.
Does this make me selfish? Perhaps. And yet, I did go on that ski trip. I shared the driving and DJed the car stereo, followed my kids down steep mountain runs and nested in our temporary flat. On our last day, I packed the car with snacks and endured the 18-hour drive all over again.
And when we got home, I felt as if I’d never been away.
